Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/330

Rh 312 RECORDS (of great interest to the historian), the contents of which have been admirably reported upon by Sir Francis Palgrave, the enrolment of bails, proceedings in outlawry, the jail delivery rolls, and a mass of indictments, recognizances, and other similar documents. The prayer book known as the sealed copy of the "Book of Common Prayer" pursuant to statute 14 Charles II. is also among the re- cords of the Court of Queen's Bench. Court of Common Pleas. This court contains a far richer collection than the Court of Queen's Bench, and from the nature of its jurisdiction the documents possess great interest for the genealogist and topographer. Foremost among them is the valuable collection of " feet of fines or final concords," which date from Henry II. to the year 1834, when fines and recoveries were abolished and "more simple modes of assurance substituted." "The utility of these records," says the Report of the House of Commons' committee on the state of the public records, " to all persons desirous of tracing property and pedigree is unquestionable." Fines contain the proceedings which have been adopted to convey estates and to free them from their entail to issue and from the dower of wives. Thus we are able to learn the name of the freeholder levying the fine, and if he was married the name of his wife and often of his children, the position and value of his estate, and not unfrequently something about his ancestors. Yet perhaps the chief value of this class of records is that they prove marriages and their issue at a time when parochial registers were not in existence. Few documents show so unbroken a succession from so early a date as these " pedes finium." The king's Silver Office books are the chief in- dexes to the fines, but they suffered greatly from the fire at the king's Silver Office in the Temple in March 1838. The recovery rolls (since 1834 continued under the name of " disentailing assurances " on the close rolls) also con- stitute another important supplement to the study of the pedes finium. Next to the collection of fines may be classed the judgment rolls of this court, or, as they are more commonly designated, the " de banco " rolls. They formerly consisted of two parts, the " communia placita " or personal plea rolls, and the " placita terras " or pleas of lands and deeds enrolled ; but after the reign of Elizabeth the latter became distinct rolls, containing the king's silver and fines, assizes, deeds enrolled, and all real actions. The judgment rolls pass through three stages first, they are plea rolls ; then, when the parties join issue, issue rolls ; and lastly, when judgments are entered upon them, judg- ment rolls. The recording of the judgments has, however, been very much neglected, for many of the judgments, instead of being entered on the plea or issue rolls, have been entered on separate pieces of parchment, and thus have given rise to certain distinct bundles called "riders," in which such entries are contained. Court of Exchequer. This collection contains next to that of the Court of Chancery the most interesting and valu- able series of documents among the English public records. The most important and most prominent series is that of the great rolls of the Exchequer, otherwise called the pipe rolls. 1 As with the close and patent rolls, so with the rolls of the pipe, it is difficult to state what is and what is not entered upon their membranes. Everything which in former times went to swell the revenues of the crown rents of various kinds, fines, amercements, profits of lands and tenements, and the like is to be found enrolled upon them. The accounts of the ancient revenue of the crown, digested under the heads of the several counties and annually written out in order to the charging and dis- object the printing of the entire series of pipe rolls from the reign of Henry II. charging of the sheriffs and other accountants, are also to be seen upon their membranes. If a great man Avau outlawed, his goods seized, his daughter married or niado a ward, the account thereof can be read in the pipe rolls. To the pedigree-hunter these records are particularly use- ful, since they contain the names of most men of property ; while to the county historian they are invaluable. Few of the English national archives boast a more uninterrupted succession than the great rolls of the Exchequer. Begin- ning in the second year of Henry II., they continue to the present time with but two gaps the rolls of the first year of Henry III. and of the seventh year of Henry IV. Of the latter of these missing rolls the antigraph or roll made by the chancellor's scribe is still in existence and supplies the place of the lost roll. At the beginning of this series there is a roll which was long looked upon as that of the first year of Henry II., or by some antiquaries as belonging to the fifth year of Stephen ; but recent criticism seems to establish thp fact that it is a roll of the 31st year of Henry I., the earliest national document, save Domesday, of any extent that now exists. Another im- portant class of documents belonging to the Court of Ex- chequer and stored with a variety of information upon secular and religious matters is the memoranda rolls, which extend from Henry III. to the middle of the present century. These rolls contain enrolments of all the weighty business done in the offices of the queen's and lord trea- surer's remembrancer. Upon their membranes the in- quirer will read how writs ran for the recovery of debts due to the crown, how commissions were appointed to seize estates attainted or forfeited to the crown, how goods were seized in the various ports of England for the non- payment of customs, how the accounts of sheriffs and escheators were settled with the Exchequer, how cities and boroughs made claim to special privileges, and how the numerous proceedings in equity on English informations and bills were conducted. The " brevia regia " endorsed on the memoranda rolls are the most ancient writs of that description in the kingdom ; in the earlier periods they assume the shape of letters and contain various wishes of the sovereigns. To the antiquary and historian the collec- tion of archives called "originalia rolls," which extend from Henry III. to William IV., is of great service. They not only throw considerable light upon the manners and customs in vogue in the 13th and 14th centuries, but also record the descent of lands, questions relating to crown revenues and feudal tenures, the appointment of various commissions for different purposes of investigation, and other similar entries. The importance of the originalia rolls is also increased from the fact that they contain numer- ous extracts from early rolls now no longer in existence. Among the documents of the ancient Exchequer there is much to interest the purely ecclesiastical historian in the collection of ministers' accounts of the issues and profits of monastic lands in the hands of the crown ; in the pensions granted to abbots and others upon the dis- solution of the monasteries, now enrolled among the records of the Augmentation Office ; in the accounts of monasteries contained in the chartularies, the account books of first- fruits and tenths ; in the taxation rolls which regulated the taxes as well to the kings as to the popes until the survey of Henry VIII. ; in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of Hemy VIII., which contains surveys of archbishoprics, bishoprics, abbeys, monasteries, and the like throughout the kingdom ; in the visitations of religious houses ; and in the Wolsey books. To the antiquary pure and simple the collection in the Exchequer which records the history of knights' service is perhaps the most interesting. The number of knights' fees throughout the kingdom was 60,215, of which the clergy had 28,015 ; but, as in process in
 * In 1883 was founded the Pipe Roll Society, which has for its